Chapter 9 - The House That Never Loved MeFor three days, I lived between my mother’s hospital room and Vittorio’s guarded townhouse.
The world outside became louder.
My face stayed in headlines.
Daryl denied everything.
Graham disappeared again.
Ivy gave one interview wearing pearls and grief, saying she had “always worried about Ava’s emotional stability.”
I watched it from my mother’s hospital bed and nearly threw a cup of ice at the television.
My mother laughed so hard the nurse came in.
That laugh was worth every headline.
But peace did not last.
It never does when rich men are cornered.
On the fourth night, Ivy called me.
I almost ignored it.
Vittorio saw the name and said, “No.”
I answered.
I was beginning to enjoy disobeying powerful men.
Ivy sounded different.
No perfume in her voice.
No polished cruelty.
Just fear.
“Your father is at the house,” she said. “He is burning things.”
“What things?”
“Files. Boxes from the attic. Your mother’s things.”
My blood turned cold.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because Daryl promised Graham protection and left him with nothing. Because I may be many things, Ava, but I am not going to prison for a man who cries when consequences arrive.”
“Where are you?”
“Gone.”
“Convenient.”
“Yes,” she said. “Survival usually is.”
Then she hung up.
I told Vittorio.
He said, “Serena can get a warrant in the morning.”
“My mother’s things may be ash by morning.”
“Ava.”
“No.”
He studied my face.
Then he reached for his coat.
“Behind you,” I reminded him.
He paused.
Then he gave the smallest nod.
“Behind you.”
The Mercer house looked smaller when we arrived.
For years, I had remembered it as a place I could never quite earn.
The perfect lawn.
The white shutters.
The polished floors Ivy refused to let me walk on with wet shoes.
Now it looked like what it was.
A house full of locked rooms and unpaid debts.
Smoke curled from the backyard.
Graham stood near a metal barrel, feeding papers into the flames.
His hair was wild.
His coat was unbuttoned.
He looked old.
Not sorry.
Just old.
“Dad.”
He turned.
For one second, relief crossed his face.
Then he saw Vittorio behind me.
The relief died.
“You brought him here.”
“You brought Daryl into my life.”
His face twisted.
“I gave you a life.”
“No. You gave me a name that wasn’t mine and called it love.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You think Matteo Vale would have raised you better? He was dead. I was there.”
“You were there because my inheritance was there.”
He threw another folder into the fire.
I ran forward.
Vittorio caught the barrel with one hand and kicked snow into the flames.
Graham shoved him.
It was like watching a child push a wall.
Vittorio did not retaliate.
That frightened Graham more.
I grabbed a half-burned box.
Inside were photos.
My mother young.
Me as a baby.
A man with dark hair holding me in a hospital blanket.
Matteo.
My real father had held me.
The picture blurred.
“You said he died before I was born,” I whispered.
Graham looked away.
My stomach dropped.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“What did you do?”
He cracked.
“He came to the hospital. He wasn’t supposed to. Marianne told everyone he died. She was scared. He came anyway. He held you once.”
The world stopped.
“He saw me?”
Graham’s face crumpled.
“Yes.”
“And then?”
Graham sank onto the snowy ground.
“I told Daryl where he was.”
The words floated between us.
Quiet.
Deadly.
Even Vittorio went still.
Graham sobbed.
“I owed money. Daryl said he only wanted to scare him. I didn’t know—”
“Stop.”
My voice did not sound like mine.
It sounded older.
Harder.
“You do not get to cry over the fire you lit.”
“I raised you.”
“You sold me.”
“I was trapped.”
“So was I. But I did not auction off someone else’s body to escape.”
He covered his face.
For the first time, I saw him clearly.
Not as a father.
Not as a villain from a story.
As a weak man who spent twenty-five years punishing women for the cowardice he refused to face.
A beam cracked behind us.
I turned.
Smoke was coming from the back porch.
The fire had spread.
Vittorio grabbed my arm.
“We leave now.”
“My mother’s boxes.”
“No.”
But then I heard it.
A cough.
From inside the house.
Graham looked up in horror.
“Ivy?”
Ivy had not left.
Of course she had not.
Survival was convenient.
So was lying.
I ran.
Vittorio cursed and followed.
The smoke was thick in the hallway. I covered my mouth with my sleeve and shouted Ivy’s name.
She answered from the upstairs landing.
“I can’t get down.”
Vittorio passed me, fast and controlled.
He found her near the top of the stairs, coughing, one ankle twisted beneath her.
He carried her out like she weighed nothing.
Outside, she clung to him and sobbed.
Graham reached for her.
She slapped him.
Hard.
The sound cracked across the yard.
“You pathetic man,” she said.
Then she looked at me.
Her mascara ran in black lines.
“I hated you because he watched you like a lottery ticket. Not a daughter. A ticket.”
I said nothing.
She pulled something from her coat.
A small envelope.
“I took this before he burned the rest.”
Inside was a bank ledger.
Daryl’s payments.
Graham’s signatures.
Years of betrayal in black ink.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Vittorio stood beside me as the house burned.
I waited for grief.
May you like
It did not come.
Some homes do not deserve mourning.
